US To Supply Coins To Zimbabwe

This is interesting. Might as well provide them with coins, it's not like there's a shortage here. We have tons and tons of SBA's sitting on pallets in storage. I wonder if we are to strike any coins for them or just supply them with our old stuff?

Why not, we've been sending them to Ecuador for years.

I've got a few of the $100 trillion notes. They're pretty funny, actually.

With regards to the coinage, I remember reading ages ago that to avoid running out of denominations due to hoarding, it's necessary to 'budget' something like 2 lbs. of mixed coins for every man, woman and child in the U.S. Now, even if you reduce that somewhat, the population of Zimbabwe is still 12.5 million. That's a lot of coins.

Also, I don't think the baby dollars will head that direction. In my experience, in Central America, even in dollarized countries like El Salvador and Panama, you don't see dollar coins at all. In Panama, you see some circulation of U.S. coins, but it's infrequent. In El Salvador, I've never seen U.S. coins outside of tourist oriented businesses. I know in Guatemala, the banks won't touch U.S. coins, period.

edit: I should acknowledge though, that the baby dollars are popular in Ecuador.

Very interesting Wonder what effect that may have on our surplus coins at the mint (Federal Reserve)?

Zimbabwe actually uses a currency basket approach where sterling, dollars, euros and rand are in use side by side.

By dollarizing (or poundizing, euroizing, etc.), you are actually holding the government more accountable on the world banking radar. Zimbabwe, like a lot of other countries, got away with "Gee, we're sorry, we can't meet our financial obligations because all we have are these ZimDollars that our own people use as toilet tissue." By being 'dollarized', it makes it much easier for the IMF and foreign banks to insist upon repayment of Zimbabwe's obligations.

Actually dollarizing the coinage though, is a very significant step. It's very rarely done. It's a very good hint that there are no plans to resurrect the ZimDollar.

It's not "free money" - they're "buying" it for face value, using US notes (or other foreign money) they already own in exchange for coins and exchanging old worn-out notes for new ones. The Zimbabwean government and banks are sharing the cost of shipping.

I'm with coppercoins on this....we cannot afford to give away even $10 given our debt situation...period.

They have diamonds, and they also have platinum - which is where all the US currency they're currently using has come from. They're the fourth largest producer of platinum after South Africa, Russia and Canada.

They also have one of the most fertile and productive agricultural regions in Africa, but thanks to Mugabe's "land reforms", Zimbabwe is now a net importer of food.